March Odds and Ends

It's time to clear the inbox of all those various bits of flotsam that are spilling over onto my already-cluttered desk.

First up, magazine news:

* The upcoming issue of SCREEM magazine will feature my review of Joe Spinell's final film, The Undertaker, along with my interview with American Grindhouse director Elijah Drenner.

* The latest FilmFax (#126) includes a lengthy piece (part 2 of 2!) on the making of Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster.

* Horror Hound's November issue (released during the Cincinnati convention) included a retrospective on Joe Spinell's Maniac, as well as an article on Oklahoma-based video pioneers VCI.

Speaking of Horror Hound, that mag's upcoming Horror Hound Weekend convention in Indianapolis (March 25-27) will feature a star-studded horror host tribute to New York movie host Zacherley (who appeared in such regional oddities as Brain Damage and Geek Maggot Bingo), featuring appearances by Joe Bob Briggs, Rhonda Shear, Count Gore De Vol, Akron's Son of Ghoul, Sammy Terry, my Kansas friend Gunther Dedmond, and Columbus, Ohio's own Fritz the Nite Owl (more on him below).

Attendees can meet the cast of The Boondock Saints, along with Corey Feldman, Tom Atkins, Barbara Steele, Ken Foree, Greydon Clark and Don Post.

* Fangoria, meanwhile, celebrated its 300th issue with a look at the 300 best horror films of all time (as selected by staffers), which included a ton of notable regional horror flicks, highlighting the importance of backwoods filmmaking to the genre during the late 20th Century: Alice, Sweet Alice, Basket Case, The Blob, Blood Feast, Brain Damage, The Brain that Wouldn't Die, Carnival of Souls, Death Dream, The Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, I Drink Your Blood, I Spit on Your Grave, Last House on the Left, Let's Scare Jessica to Death, Maniac, Night of the Living Dead, Street Trash, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Not to mention the almost-but-not-quite regional flicks like Martin, Sisters and Squirm that made the list, along with newer indies like The Blair Witch Project.

DVD NEWS:

* First up, one of Al Adamson's only bona fide regional flicks, the bizarro Carnival Magic (1982), made in conjunction with Teenage Strangler producer Elvin Feltner down in North Cackalacky. Once thought lost, it is now available on DVD (and Blu-Ray!) from the fine folks at Cultra/Virgial Films and packed with extras.


Code Red canceled their release of God's Bloody Acre because of technical issues (but not before a number of copies made it onto the market and eventually to eBay), then announced it would be released later on a double feature with another Wayne Crawford flick, Tomcats, and then announced again that it would be released on its own sometime this month. Which is pretty much the most action that film has seen in decades.

Code Red IS releasing Harry Thomason's not-quite-as-interesting-as-you-remember-it Encounters with the Unknown on a double feature with When Time Began later in March, and has announced they'll be releasing Mardi Gras Massacre (Louisiana), Michael de Gaetano's Haunted (Arizona), and the berserk bigfoot classic Night of the Demon.

Virgil Films, meanwhile, is supposed to finally deliver on the nutty made-in-Georgia hick flick Poor Pretty Eddie on April 26. The Nesting is due out from Blue Underground on 6/28.

Shout! Factory also released the allegedly made-in-Hawaii Demon of the Paradise which, it turns out, was actually made in the Philippines, which makes slightly more sense.

THE RONDO AWARDS ARE BACK!

Don't forget to cast your ballot for this year's Rondo Awards. We weren't nominated for anything this year, but some mighty fine folks we know were, including Daniel Griffin, The Drunken Severed Head, and The Good, The Bad and Godzilla.

CARNIVAL OF SOULS ON THE BIG SCREEN

Horror fans who grew up in Central Ohio were weened on to the scary stuff by the one and only Fritz the Nite Owl, the smooth voiced movie host who ruled the roost here from the early 70s until he was unceremoniously dumped in 1991. Fritz has been off and on TV and local radio for more than 50 years (!) now, and of late he's been hosting live film events at the Grandview Theater once a month. The March film is the Kansas-lensed public domain classic Carnival of Souls. See it on March 19 at Midnight.

William Grefe Returns to Horror

Fangoria has reported that Florida filmmaker William Grefe and screenwriter Gary Crutcher are trying to revive an old script they put together in the 1970s called Why Won't Valerie Die?

Even better, Crutcher and Grefe, who previously collaborated on Stanley, asked writer, historian and Temple of Schlock curator Chris Poggiali to update and finish the script. Chris has been a huge help to me during the research and writing of The Dead Next Door, so it's great to see him involved in a project with one of the 13 filmmakers I interviewed for the book.

Chris explained to me in a recent email that he wrote 30 new pages of material based on Grefe's original six-page outline and the existing 90 pages of script material, and restructured some of the original script.

"Gary and Bill are both thrilled with the result, which is a whodunit mystery/ghost story that -- to me, anyway -- is reminiscent in structure to THE NAME OF THE GAME IS KILL but also calls to mind THE NAKED ZOO," Poggiali says. "Despite my recent input, it's very much still a 1971 script. In fact, because they wanted it finished in the style that it was originally written, I had to teach myself how to write a shooting script, which was a totally new experience for me. It was very difficult at first, because it's like directing a movie at the same time the movie is being written, but once I got the hang of it I actually enjoyed it. Gary is especially impressed with the way I mimicked his style, because he has no idea who wrote what anymore!"

Crutcher, as Chris mentions above, wrote The Name of the Game is Kill (1968), a crazy thriller featuring Jack Lord that at one point was supposed to be released by Code Red, but now appears to be in limbo.

Here's an excerpt of my Grefe interview, in which he describes his first meeting with Crutcher in the 1960s:

"[He] didn't look like a typical Hollywood guy. He had short hair and a suit and tie. I said, 'I'd like to read a couple of your scripts.' He opens up his briefcase. He's got a .45 automatic, he's got a dagger, and it's lined with pills ... I never hired him, but when I made the Stanley deal, I called him."

I'm Not Crazy - Or Maybe You Are

Here's a shot-on-video mystery for you: Check out this classified advertisement from the back pages of the July 1989 issue of Fangoria magazine. Anyone have any idea what this is? Better yet, did anyone actually order the video? Did you indeed laugh until you screamed? Web searches for Segway Productions have so far been fruitless, but there was a Segway Publications that published a 'zine called Independent Video in the early 1990s. Were they related?

If you have any clues as to the origins of this West Islip, N.Y., oddity, please let me know. And if you have any other good examples of homegrown horrors advertised in the back pages of Fangoria (particularly if they are pre-1988), send them my way and I'll post 'em.

February Odds and Ends

We're only a few weeks into the month, and it's already time to do a little housecleaning around the crypt. Here are some random bits of news and updates that have been piling up on my already cluttered desk:

* The Al Adamson Channel: Independent-International Pictures's founder and president Sam Sherman called us a few months back to let us know that he had launched a free YouTube channel called iipAlAdamsonMania. While a good many of late director Al Adamson's exploitation pix are available there, Sherman has also posted a number or rarities from the IIP and Hemisphere libraries, everything from THE ALFRED NOBEL STORY to FIGHTING RATS OF TOBRUK.

And, of course, there are a few regional titles in there as well, including John Russo's MIDNIGHT (filmed in Pennsylvania) and the oddball 1961 Barry Mahon flick BLOOD OF THE ZOMBIE (shot in New Orleans). You can watch the full-length films online (there's a brief commercial) and access all of the trailers.

* Big Changes at Fangoria: A number of blogs and message boards have been buzzing about this for a few weeks, but word on the street is that longtime Fangoria editor Tony Timpone has stepped down (after an astounding 20-plus-year tenure), and former Rue Morgue writer Chris Alexander has been tapped as his replacement. Timpone will apparently continue working with the mag in some capacity, and managing editor Mike Gingold is still on board. The mgaazine's Web site, however, is has been down for awhile.

* DVD Updates: Watch out for the Jack Weis-Herbert Janneke Jr. film QUADROON (1972) from Code Red in March. The Louisiana-lensed plantation pic stars frequent S.F. Brownrigg actor Bill McGhee. Code Red also recently released the previously unheard of Canadian picture NIGHT OF THE DRIBBLER (1990) from Jack Bravman, who was (I think) the same guy who made JANIE (1970) and who helped Ed Adlum come up with the idea for INVASION OF THE BLOOD FARMERS. Alpha Video, meanwhile, is having a half-off anniversary sale, so you can get that KEEP MY GRAVE OPEN DVD even cheaper now.

* Exploitation Movies in L.A.: My friends over at the Temple of Schlock have teamed up with Cultra DVD to present "The Art of Exploitation" at the Cinefamily theater in Los Angeles. They kicked things off with the Georgia oddity POOR PRETTY EDDIE (along with THE LONERS).

This week (Friday, Feb. 12) they're playing two films from New York director Andy Milligan, FLESHPOT ON 42ND STREET and THE BODY BENEATH. You can see the rest of the schedule here.

* Hello, Chesty: Mark Nelson posted a link over at AvManiacs to a tampabay.com article profiling former burlesque performer and Doris Wishman collaborator Chesty Morgan. It's fascinating reading -- as are the accompanying reader comments.